


I’ll Be Your Operator

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Blindfolds, Castration Play, Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuffs, D/s, Dominance, Edgeplay, Established Relationship, Fear Play, Gags, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, Love, M/M, Restraints, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:00:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3279383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Depeche Mode's 'Puppets':</p><p>“Get that feeling<br/>Head is reeling<br/>You think you're in control<br/>But you don't know me babe<br/>I can move you<br/>I can soothe you<br/>I can take you places in a different way</p><p>I don't think you understand<br/>What I'm trying to say<br/>I'll be your operator baby<br/>I'm in control”</p><p>(Based on the prompt from anon “mormor with castration play (NOT actual castration, just bdsm play)”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll Be Your Operator

    Moran tracks the professor’s movements around him, trying to listen to him over his own rapid breathing and the racing of his heart.

    Beside him something chinks and he darts his unseeing gaze towards it as if he could still see it. The blindfold is thick and secure though ( _of course_ the professor would never provide him with a blindfold of inferior quality) and he can see nothing still.

    “I think,” Moriarty muses aloud, surprisingly close to Moran’s ear, “that things will be so much better when this is done, do you not?”

   Moran hesitates, swallowing, uncertain what the professor means.

   Sensing his lover’s confusion, Moriarty enlightens him. “Your insatiable libido, pet; it is about time this was brought under control so you no longer try to stray from me.” Moriarty rests his hand briefly on Moran’s thigh, stroking the bare flesh.

     Moran shivers. Although he is entirely naked, the room is not especially cold. Even the professor’s fingers are warm. It is not cold then that makes him tremble so.

     “After all, this is what is done to unruly horses, and to bulls,” Moriarty continues, moving his hand to test the cuffs restraining Moran’s wrists. “Not too tight? Good, I wouldn’t want you to cause yourself any injury to your arms. Now…” He trails his hand down Moran’s body again, down to where his legs are restrained equally securely, his thighs parted wide. “Where was I? Ah, horses and bulls… a few simple cuts, a little snip here and there and the animal becomes calmer, less prone to straying in search of some pretty little thing to _fuck_.” He utters this obscenity quite precisely, quite serenely, knowing that it both shocks and excites Moran to hear him speak so. “I’m afraid though,” he says, patting Moran’s knee before he turns away, “that there will almost certainly be some pain.”

     Moran twists in his restraints at this and Moriarty regards him steadily. Moran’s breathing is becoming more rapid and Moriarty hesitates a moment, further examining all the physical signs he is showing (rapid breathing behind his gag; noticeable trembling; a definite flush to his skin though and, of course, the most unmistakeable sign that despite his nervousness he is really incredibly _aroused,_ standing up between his splayed thighs.

     “You are averse to this idea?” he enquires.

     Although he cannot see, Moran turns his face towards Moriarty still almost as if he can look directly at him; almost as if he could speak to him in anything other than unintelligible moans through his gag.

     Moriarty trails his fingers through Moran’s hair. “You dislike the idea of the pain, hmm? Well then…” He drops his face lower beside Moran’s. “You should not have cheated on me, Sebastian; you should have thought with your brain and not with what is between your legs.”

     Moran lets out a soft moan through the saliva-soaked fabric of the gag.

     “Shhh, shhh.” Moriarty brushes Moran’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I am aware that perhaps you simply cannot help it, that your loyalty to me is overridden by your biological urges, thus… this simple procedure will solve this problem once and for all, will it not? You want to be loyal to me, do you not? Faithful?”

     Moran nods and seems to let out a sob behind his gag.

    “Well then. This is what must be done to achieve that.” Moriarty regards him for a second or two more before retrieving the necessary equipment. The knife, one which he had shown to Moran earlier, demonstrating its sharpness upon a hapless carrot, makes a sharp metallic click as he sets it down on the tray on the bed, between his lover’s legs. The leather cord though is of course silent, at least until he snaps it taut between his hands with a sharp twang, testing its strength. “It has always struck me,” he remarks, “how poorly designed the human body is in many regards. Take these…” He slides his hand under Moran’s balls, lifting them; holding them in his palm briefly. “How vulnerable they are to injury.” As if to demonstrate his point he gives them a rough squeeze, making Moran cry out in pain through the gag but causing his cock to twitch noticeably also. “Of course, yours are _even more_ vulnerable than most men’s at this present time, given your current position.” Moriarty smirks at this as he surveys his bound, nude, almost entirely defenceless lover. Moran can do no more than try to press his legs a little tighter together to protect his manhood, but it is not enough to stop the professor from slipping the leather cord around the base of his sac. “And when I tie this cord around them like _so_ …” He jerks the cord tightly into a knot and Moran gasps into his gag. “It hurts, does it my boy?”

     Moran tugs at his wrist restraints, his hands clenching in the cuffs as he feels the throbbing pain building in his most sensitive parts. Moriarty notes the tension of the fingers of his right hand in particular.

     “That is due to the blood supply being cut off,” he remarks as idly as if he were discussing the weather. “Were I to leave this cord tied so tightly for too long, I would not even have any need to use this knife upon you. Even a few minutes may cause irreparable damage.” Moriarty takes out his gold pocketwatch and clicks open the case, checking the time.

     Moran twists his face away and continues to writhe a little on the bed.

     “What, my dove, you cannot endure this?” Moriarty leans over him, pressing his face closer to Moran’s again. “What makes you think, Sebastian, that you have any say in this?” He strokes Moran’s sweat-soaked brow very gently again. “You are mine, pet, in body and soul; your body is mine to do what I wish to. If my wish is to exert my dominance over you by _castrating_ you, by turning you into a _eunuch_ then so be it.” While he is close to Moran like this he presses two fingers beneath Moran’s jaw, feeling his pulse. It beats rapidly and strongly, but not so fast that Moriarty feels he must be concerned. “Besides…” He glances down at Moran’s obvious arousal again. “From your reaction _here_ …” He reaches over and gives Moran’s erection an almost contemptuous flick with his finger. “I would say you are _relishing_ your submission to me; that you are desperate to make this sacrifice to me even.”

     Moran shakes his head from side to side and pulls hard at his cuffs again.

     “You may resist all you like, chick, but I shall not be swayed. You have long known that I do not tolerate betrayal and disloyalty. You are fortunate indeed that I have not decided simply to kill you and have done with it; that I have decided to be merciful instead.”

     Moran twists in his restraints again and seems to utter something that almost certainly is a curse of some kind through his gag.

     “Shhh, shhh, hush now.” The professor gently strokes Moran’s abdomen. “It will all be over soon.” Then he pulls away abruptly, peering at his pocketwatch again. “I shall give you a few minutes to contemplate your sacrifice.”

      Moran tugs violently at his restraints, the force of it seeming to startle both of them somewhat.

     “Sebastian?” Moriarty queries, moving closer to his side again.

     Moran shakes his head quickly again but Moriarty notices how swiftly his struggles subside in strength when he feels Moriarty’s hand resting against his collarbone. Moriarty smiles, realising the source of Moran’s sudden terror.

     “Shh, it’s all right, I was not going to leave you alone.” When he moves his hand to Moran’s face, Moran presses against his palm and the professor can feel that the blindfold too is damp. “My poor, misguided boy.” He sets his watch down close by Moran’s ear. “Can you hear that, Sebastian? Can you hear it ticking?”

     Moran, breathing heavily into his gag, nods.

    “Five minutes, Colonel; five minutes I will give you, before I take this…” Again that chink of metal as Moriarty picks up the knife. “And make use of it.”

     Moran shivers noticeably at these words; at the calm composure of the professor’s tone, perhaps aware not just of the more explicit threat but the implicit one also. Cutting off his balls, cutting his throat; either would be perfectly possible. Moriarty may rarely get his own hands dirty when it comes to hurting; to killing, but he is entirely capable of doing either, Moran is sure, and the colonel, bound there, would not be able to stop him.

     Moriarty smiles at his lover’s reaction. Despite his pain the colonel’s erection, Moriarty notes, has not subsided.

      “Four minutes,” he says, and moves to draw the spit-soaked gag from Moran’s mouth. “Is there anything, pet, you wish to say?”

     Moran is still breathing hard even as Moriarty drags the gag from his mouth. “Professor,” he says, between panting from the pain, “please…”

     "Please what?”

     “Please, don’t; I’ve not cheated on you, I’ve never, I never would.”

     Moriarty slowly shakes his head from side to side. “No Sebastian, that simply will not do.”

     “I’ve not betrayed you!”

     “Do you think I can still believe a word you say?” Moriarty eyes his watch again, silently counting down the seconds. “Three and a half minutes.”

     “Please, James.” Moran shifts over as much as the restraints allow, trying to nuzzle against Moriarty’s arm. “Please, sir.”

     “Shh, shhh.” Moriarty strokes Moran’s brow tenderly. “Please bear in mind, Sebastian,” he tells him, leaning over him again, “that I am only doing this because I care for you.”

      “James _…_ James, please…”

     Gently but firmly, Moriarty presses Moran back down onto the bed. “Three minutes. Is the pain very bad?”

      Moran nods, his breath still coming in shaky gasps. “Yes, sir, please… it hurts...”

     “Well then…” Moriarty smiles. “I hope that you can find some comfort in the fact that this hurts me, Sebastian, far more than it hurts you. It is only because of your behaviour that I am forced to take such _drastic measures_.”

     Moran sobs again. “ _Professor_.”

     Again Moriarty scrutinises his lover’s form, watching how he struggles and writhes; how his chest heaves; how his hands remain clenched in the cuffs. His Sebastian, laid out for him, so vulnerable, so desperate. “One minute,” he says finally, leaning over Moran once more. “One more minute, my dove, for you to remain a whole man.”

     “Please, Professor,” Moran says. “I won’t… I won’t betray you, I won’t.”

     “Yes Moran,” Moriarty says with a malevolent smile playing across his lips, “I can guarantee that you will not.” And he takes that sharp blade in one hand whilst gently cupping Moran’s balls in the other. “Shhh, shhh, my pretty little chick, hush now,” he soothes as Moran cries out again. “This will all be over very soon.”

     Moran tugs hard against his restraints, his back arching off the bed, caught somewhere between fear and arousal, barely able to think coherently any more. No longer can he hear the ticking of the professor’s watch over the pounding of his own blood; his racing heart and his own panting breath. No longer can he entirely remember where he is even; to him there is only darkness and the throbbing pain and the professor’s warm hands upon him; the professor moving between his legs and then… then…

     “No,” Moran says, choking on sobs. “No, no, no, Professor, _no_!”

     But Moriarty cuts and for Moran there is momentarily such pain that it steals his ability to think; to breathe, even, until after some seconds that breath bursts from his chest in a long stuttering scream of, _“James!”_

 

~

 _Two weeks earlier_  

 

    It is one of those evenings when after a fine dinner out and the consumption of perhaps rather too much good wine, Moran becomes considerably more open then usual. The alcohol and the professor’s good mood have blunted some of the colonel’s customary reticence.

     “Tell me your deepest, darkest desires,” Moriarty says over cognac in their sitting room, eyeing his companion with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Tell me something, Sebastian, that you believe will shock me.”

    Moran responds to this with laughter, regarding Moriarty steadily over his glass. “So you can mock me?”

    “When have I ever mocked you, my boy?” Moriarty enquires. “No, my pet, I am merely curious – curious to know if you can truly manage to astonish me, and of course curious to see if we can dream up some new game to play together.”

    Moran slides over to straddle the professor’s hips, careful not to spill his cognac in the process. “You’ll laugh at me.”

    Moriarty looks up at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Are your darkest desires so amusing then?”

    Moran glances away, his face clouding. “No,” he says, and knocks his cognac back in a gulp.

    “Tell me.” Moriarty’s voice is soft and coaxing. He still watches Moran steadily until Moran turns his face back and meets the professor’s questioning gaze again.

    “You’ll judge me.” Moran looks down into his glass, unsurprised but somewhat disappointed to find it empty.

    Moriarty, regarding him intently still, plucks the empty glass from Moran’s hand and sets it aside. “I do not judge you, Sebastian.” He runs his hand slowly up and down Moran’s back, feeling the tension in him. “Come now, Moran, we are both veterans of too many _intimate_ games for either of us to believe that anything we could desire would make the other regard us with distaste.”

    Moran looks away again. “Sir, I…”

    As Moran trails off, Moriarty continues to stroke his back soothingly, using both hands now. “Moran?”

    “I just…” Moran gazes off into space. His cheeks are flushed now as he speaks. “I like it when… when you… accuse me of things you know I haven’t really done – betraying you, cheating on you and…” He trails off again, his face flushing even more deeply.

    “And what?” Moriarty presses. There is much more to this, he senses, than such accusations. Those accusations are only mere words after all, as capable as they may be of having a profound impact on the colonel in the right context.

    Moran swallows. “Once you… you accused me of looking at a woman in a certain way and you threatened to…” He screws his eyes tight shut, overwhelmed with shame at even coming close to admitting this, yet even thinking about it like this is having a rather powerful effect on him.

    Moriarty smiles, both at Moran’s arousal and at his own sudden recollection of the game in question. “I threatened to, what?” he muses. “ _Unman_ you? Is that the thought that excites you so, Sebastian? That I would treat you like some unruly colt and deprive you of a portion – or two – of your anatomy you no doubt consider some of your most import assets?”

    Moran opens his eyes to glare at Moriarty, indignation overcoming his shame momentarily. “You _are_ mocking me.”

    “Pigeon, I am not mocking you.” Indeed Moriarty looks at Moran perfectly seriously, perfectly serenely – amused, maybe, but not in a malicious way; perhaps more delighted at how perfectly, as always, Moran’s submissive yearnings slot together with his own desire to dominate and subjugate a companion. He has never fully considered this course of action precisely and yet… the notion has definite possibilities. “I am only _intrigued_ by your arcane fantasies – yes, deeply intrigued.” He continues to caress Moran’s sides, ever mindful that physical touch can be an immensely useful way to reassure his lover.

    “It’s not that I _actually_ want you to do it,” Moran is quick to point out, settling down a little under Moriarty’s touch. “I mean, I don’t mind a bit of pain and that in our games but it ain’t like I want you to go through with it for real.”

    “I understand that.”

    “Just… to know that you could, if you chose to, and I’d be helpless to stop you; not that you ever would but just that you _could_.”

    “I do understand, pet.” Moriarty lifts Moran’s hand to his lips and kisses the backs of his fingers. “I would never truly harm you, my dove, but in play… perhaps the idea is intriguing.”

    “Then you’d want to…?” Moran looks at him questioningly, seemingly half-fearful, half-hopeful. Some people used to claim, in India, in Afghanistan, that Colonel Moran was fearless to the point of madness, but he is not fearless – he fears much. But perhaps the thing that marks him out from many other men is that fear can be a powerful aphrodisiac to him; that he can be simultaneously nervous, apprehensive, about engaging in some particular act yet also crave it. The hardest thing perhaps for him to do is to admit that he desires such acts in the first place, having been so conditioned to think of them as shameful; as taboo.

    Professor James Moriarty though positively revels in laughing in the face of society’s attempts to shame people; he sneers at many such taboos.

    “Yes,” the professor answers.

    “Tonight?”

    Moriarty shakes his head slowly. “No, not tonight. Tonight you are too inebriated for such games.”

    “I ain’t.”

     “Yes, my dove, you are. Furthermore-” When Moran opens his mouth to protest further, Moriarty presses a finger to his lips, silencing him. “Furthermore… I feel that this is something requiring further research.”

     Moran laughs at this, at the professor’s persistent bookish tendencies that seem to lead him to assume every thing, every act, every experience, can be looked up in a book. “Must you research everything?”

    “If you wish to do this safely, yes. Of course if you do not mind truly becoming a eunuch then we may forego the research.” Moriarty raises an eyebrow at him. “I had assumed, however, that you would not wish to go that far.”

    Moran grimaces at the idea. “All right, point taken, but still… you try to research _everything_ – sex, kissing, all sorts, as if these things can be understood just by reading about ‘em.” He leans forward, tilting his head to press a kiss to the professor’s lips.

    Moriarty accepts this kiss before speaking again. “That is because, pigeon, these things are not innate to me; as pleasurable as they may be, they do not come naturally to me. How else was I supposed to understand them?”

    “By doing.” So saying, Moran kisses him again, with more tongue this time.

    “But who, precisely, was I meant to do this with before a certain colonel came into my life, hmm?” Moriarty enquires, stroking Moran’s hair. “No-one else appealed to me as you do; no-one else was so trustworthy; no-one else had the perfect balance of submissiveness coupled with inner strength. I suppose I could have bribed or forced someone to submit to me but that is not what I desired for my experimentation.”

    Moran pulls back a degree and grins at him. “Professor, I’ve told you before, I’m more than happy to let you _experiment_ upon me whenever you want in whatever way you like.”

   “Oh?” Moriarty queries. “And what if one day, my pet, we find the limits of what you can endure?”

    “We ain’t found them so far.”

    “Have we not?” Moriarty’s expression becomes far more serious suddenly. “Sebastian.” He lets his hands rest against Moran’s sides. “From time to time even with you I doubt that you enjoy _everything_ that I inflict upon you in some of our more extreme games – all the humiliation; all of the pain.”

     Moran scoffs at this. “Please, you think I can’t bear a little pain? And as for humiliation it ain’t like you do it in public, is it? If you tried to demean me so in front of other people, well, maybe then I’d punch you in the face for it, _sir_.” He smirks. “But in private, that’s different. Then, I like it.”

    “You are not merely subjecting yourself to those aspects because you feel you are obliged to?” the professor asks, recalling how occasionally he has suspected that Moran has let himself go too far, pushing himself far past the point where he is comfortable because of some misguided belief that to admit that he has had enough is some sign of weakness. At these times Moriarty has had to wield his control over Moran in an entirely different way, not by continuing with the discipline but by knowing when to say enough is enough. “Or are you submitting to the pain and humiliation merely because you enjoy the parts that come afterwards?” He recalls now how eagerly Moran nuzzles into his embrace when the games are over; how much he clearly craves the physical affection.

    “Sir, I enjoy that portion too, but I enjoy both parts. Even when you’re hurting me or humiliating me… well I don’t rightly understand why it has such an effect on me but Christ, it makes me shoot like a volcano.” Moran grins wickedly.

    Moriarty laughs at this mental image. “Yes, that much is true,” he says, recollecting how intensely Moran does react to some of their play-acting. “But, still…”

    Moran leans forward slightly again, the amusement fading from his face, seriousness taking over. “Sir, I like both sides of it, I promise you. Maybe I’d not enjoy the first part much if you never bothered with the second, if you never bothered to take care of me after, but you do, and… well I just feel… calmer, after. Don’t you feel that too? Like when we do something really intense, afterwards you feel a lot more relaxed.”

     “Yes, I do feel that.” Moriarty is fully aware that their games are an excellent way to relieve tension, not merely sexual tension but other forms of physical and mental stress also. When he is infuriated at the general stupidity of human beings, instead of lashing out in some uncontrolled way and drawing the condemnation of his academic peers or other members of polite society then he can vent his frustrations upon Moran in a manner that is controlled, safe and mutually satisfactory. Still though this does not mean he does not sometimes doubt Moran’s motives for submitting to him. “It is cathartic, as you say,” he says. “I simply wish to be certain, Sebastian, that you are willing.”

    “Professor.” Moran looks him in the eyes intently, perfectly serious. “James,” he says, leaning forward to give the professor another brief, sweet kiss on the lips. “I am willing.”

~   

 

      Moran is sobbing still - deep wrenching sobs that shake him to his foundations, bursting up out of his chest and rendering him unable to speak for some time, until eventually what comes bubbling out of him is:

    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry sir.”

    “Shhh, shhh, it’s all right pigeon, you’re safe; perfectly safe.” Moriarty is beside him, warm and solid; embracing him tightly and feeling the tremors that shake the colonel’s entire body. Carefully he eases the blindfold off but Moran cannot stand to open his eyes yet. Everything seems too bright; too much to bear.

    Beside them the knife and the leather cord, the latter cut through now, lie on the bedside table, discarded. Moran does not need to see these though to understand fully that he is unharmed, still completely intact; that Moriarty would no more ever cut off a piece of him than he would cut off his own hand and that the new surge of pain came simply from the temporarily interrupted blood-flow resuming with the cutting of the leather cord.

     He is only dimly aware of Moriarty carefully removing his cuffs, freeing him; then of the professor gently easing the fingers of his right hand open and taking the little rubber ball from his grasp – the ball he could have released his hold upon to signal he wanted an end to the game even when he was gagged; the ball he has been clutching tightly all this while. He has greater awareness of the professor wrapping a soft, thick blanket around him and holding him, rocking him like a child.

    “My brave, sweet boy,” Moriarty croons to him. “My brave Sebastian, I am so proud of you.”

      Moran continues to sob against the professor’s shoulder, his tears soaking into Moriarty’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m sorry, I know you’d never… you’d never harm me, I know you’d never… never do that for real, I just…”

     Moriarty gently draws Moran’s chin up and looks into his lover’s red-rimmed eyes. “There is no need to apologise, my dove. I promise you, you have nothing to be sorry for. Our games can be extremely intense, even somewhat overwhelming for you; I understand that. I do not doubt your trust in me.” He draws Moran to him again and holds him until Moran’s sobs subside.

     Eventually Moran straightens up a little and looks sheepishly at the professor. “You must still think I’m foolish for acting like this.”

    “I have never thought you foolish.” Moriarty gently strokes Moran’s cheek, brushing away a tear with his thumb. “I think you immensely brave for embracing what you desire even when it puts you in such an intensely vulnerable position. Besides…” He smirks slightly as he nods towards Moran’s midsection, where glistening wetness smeared over his stomach demonstrates just how powerfully Moran had reacted to his beloved professor wielding such control over him. “A mere physiological response, perhaps, but I do not believe you would have climaxed quite so vigorously if deep down you had believed me capable of harming you.”

    Moran looks down at the mess streaked across his abdomen, his cheeks flushing slightly. Perhaps it is hardly unexpected that he spent during their game but knowing of the professor’s distaste for the messier aspects of sex he cannot help but feel somewhat embarrassed that his body has reacted so. “I’m sorry,” he says, turning his face away.

    “Stop apologising, chick.” Moriarty’s voice remains quiet and soothing and he is smiling still. If anything he seems amused, not disgusted, by Moran’s physical response. “There truly is nothing at all for you to be sorry for.”

    “I don’t even really remember, well, finishing,” Moran admits. Although he does feel sleepy and sated, as if all that coiled tension that was in him not so long ago has dissipated, as it invariably does when he has a really intense orgasm, even if he cannot consciously recollect its dispersal.

    “Does that matter?” Moriarty asks.

    Moran laughs softly. “No, I don’t suppose it does.” He glances up at Moriarty’s face briefly. “What about you, don’t you want to spend too?”

    “No, I feel no particular urge for that at present.” Moriarty’s urges, his needs, though they may frequently align with Moran’s, are not always precisely like the colonel’s. Much of the pleasure he obtains is therefore cerebral and not always so visceral. “Here…” Moriarty draws Moran further into his embrace, encountering no resistance to this. In his post-coital state Moran is extremely pliant, perfectly content to snuggle up to Moriarty and simply sleep. “Let us just lie here for a while, hmm?” He brushes a few sweat-soaked strands of hair off Moran’s face.

     “What about the mess?” Moran asks, but his eyes are already slipping closed. The intensity of the game and his own body’s reaction to it has evidently exhausted him entirely. It would be needlessly cruel, Moriarty has decided, to force him to get up and get cleaned up immediately, and while he does dislike certain aspects of sex they are not so entirely abhorrent to him that he cannot wait an hour to clean up now.

     “Never mind the mess; we can clean up later.” The professor presses a light kiss to the top of Moran’s head as the colonel curls into his arms. Moran’s breathing has evened out; his pulse and heartbeat have slowed considerably as exhaustion seizes him. Moriarty almost thinks that Moran has fallen asleep except that suddenly he stirs slightly.

    “James,” he murmurs against Moriarty’s throat. “Thank you.”

    “For what?” Moriarty asks, pausing in his idle stroking of Moran’s back.

    Moran smiles sleepily. “For everything.”

    “Everything?” the professor queries with a smile, uncertain as to the depth and breadth of what this ‘everything’ encompasses, but no further explanation is forthcoming. Moran has fallen soundly asleep, safe in his professor’s arms.  


End file.
